So today was the first time I've had internet access to call my own, so I'll do my best to get people caught up on my first week in New Zealand. Starting at the beginning:
My dad saw me off at the airport, and from Kalispell it was on to Salt Lake City to see my buddy Dylan. We had a great time, saw a shooting (not really), and I even got some sushi out of the deal. This picture is of Dylan laughing at the number of skis he has managed to steal without the police finding out... just kidding, he's kind of a big deal :)
So I got to LA and checked through security essentially 8 hours early, so my first priority was to make a friend whom which to suffer with through "the wait." I was successful and I made my first friend, Duncan from the UK. We talked about politics, world travels, and exchanged some sweet music. Students started to pour into the terminal as the day went on, so there were plenty of us.
We managed to get on the plane, had a great meal with some great New Zealand wine (we were flying on Air New Zealand). It was the biggest plane I had ever been on -- an air bus, and I was so impressed. When we landed in Auckland it was 6am and we were all shuffled into a big long line for security and customs checks -- apparently I was an extra threat because I had a tent and hiking boots with me! We then hopped on some buses and rode for 4 hours to another city in the north island called Rotorua, where we stayed at a backpackers hostile for our orientation. Orientation was an absolute blast -- I got to see some of the country side, wander around the town, go zorbing (climb into a big plastic ball and get rolled down a hill), participate in a traditional Mauri hangi (food is actually cooked under ground), and my favorite of all were the Waitomo caves. The caving I did involved repelling and climbing -- I got to do 5 seperate repels into the cave, and one was down a waterfall! Not to mention the glow worms, only found in New Zealand and Austrailia -- turning off our head lamps in the caves and looking up, I was looking at a starry starry night!
So this is a classic Mauri pose. The tongue out represents a "hunger for the enemy" and the Mauri people were cannibals! Apparently the brain was a delicacy...
It was a lot of fun and the food was fantastic!
After orientation we flew to our own universities which for me and 50 others was the University of Canterbury in Christchurch! We were greeted by a few of the RAs of Ilam village, and were shown to our rooms.
This picture is of my room, with an excellent view of the construction site! And a picture of me, jet lagged and beautiful in my brand new room! I have four other flatmates, one is a Kiwi (NZ) and he's also my RA (Callem), Alex from Germany, Mik from Italy, and Meghan from Maine. The first night I got there Mik prepared an excellent Italian pasta for all of us, so that was a great first night!
Now in Christchurch, we had our international student orientation and enrollment -- which sort of exhausted me. Anyway we made a lot of "first trips" into Christchurch and to the beach! This is such a beautiful place and I can't believe I get to call it home for 4 more months! I can't wait to get out more and explore! I also purchased a guitar - and it has been awesome to play that, keeps me sane :) So that's about it for now, and I'll try to post more regularly. A few things to note about New Zealand: traffic on opposite sides (that goes for walking on sidewalks and in the malls too), it's common to walk around barefoot (I got to grocery shop barefoot the other day), their national bird the Kiwi is a nocturnal, flightless bird, and there is essentially no ozone about NZ -- so with barely any polution that adds up to about an 10 minute burn time outside (lots of sunscreen). Feel free to
email me and I hope to be in contact with you all soon! Much love from across the international dateline! Don't mind the spelling/grammar errors in this post -- it's kind of late here :) Love!
email me and I hope to be in contact with you all soon! Much love from across the international dateline! Don't mind the spelling/grammar errors in this post -- it's kind of late here :) Love!
